Man who stalked child porn victim gets 25 years

By Cara McCoy

Wednesday, April 28, 2010 | 10:55 a.m.

A former Las Vegas man was sentenced to 25 years in prison after stalking and harassing a known victim of child pornography, the U.S. Attorney’s office announced Wednesday.

Prosecutors said that in 2007, the man sent repeated e-mails to the woman, who when she was 9 or 10 years old, had pornographic images taken of her. Those images were part of a series of child porn images that circulated the Internet for years, the U.S. attorney’s office said.

Gregory Hoffman, 41, in November pleaded guilty to one count of transporting child pornography and one count of stalking. He was sentenced Monday, U.S. Attorney for the District of Nevada Daniel G. Bogden said in a statement.

Prosecutors said Hoffman’s sentence was increased because the images were of prepubescent minors or minors under the age of 12; because he distributed images to a minor; because some of the images depicted violence; and because more than 600 images were involved.

In June and July 2007, Hoffman sent repeated e-mails to the woman and to a friend via MySpace, harassing her about why she didn’t write him back and why she planned to testify against the person who had created the porn series that victimized her, the U.S. attorney’s office said. He also asked her to send new pictures and asked the woman to make a pornographic film with him. Prosecutors said Hoffman also sent pornographic images of the victim to the victim’s friend.

Federal law enforcement agents executed a search warrant on Hoffman’s Las Vegas home in August 2007. His wife informed investigators that he no longer lived there and gave authorities two disks containing almost 1,500 images of child pornography, prosecutors said.

He was arrested in Middletown, N.Y., where he had relocated, the U.S. attorney’s office said. He was indicted in 2008.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Nancy J. Koppe prosecuted the case, which was investigated by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.